Thursday, 25 January 2018

Media Quotes of the Week: From the Financial Times' charity dinner sexual harassment scoop to should Facebook pay publishers for 'trusted' news?

The Financial Times' Madison Marriage on going undercover to investigate the sexual harassment at the Presidents Club charity event: "There was no other way of going in as women aren't welcome as guests. The men were initially quite decorous, but things very quickly took a turn for the worse. Some of the behaviour was pretty shocking and depressing."

The Financial Timesundercover investigation into the Presidents Club charity event which led to its closure: "The Financial Times sent two people undercover to work as hostesses on the night. Reporters also gained access to the dining hall and surrounding bars. Over the course of six hours, many of the hostesses were subjected to groping, lewd comments and repeated requests to join diners in bedrooms elsewhere in the Dorchester."

Mark Di Stefano @MarkDiStef on Twitter: "The Presidents Club investigation just passed 700k views making it the most read FT online story ever."

Press Gazettereports: "The Times has a larger daily print circulation than the Telegraph (when bulk sales are included) for the first time, new monthly figures show. The Times sold 446,204 copies in December last year, up on 393,310 at rival the Telegraph, according to ABC’s monthly newsbrands report."

The Competition & Markets Authority in a statement: "The CMA has provisionally found that Fox taking full control of Sky is not in the public interest due to media plurality concerns, but not because of a lack of a genuine commitment to meeting broadcasting standards in the UK. The media plurality concerns identified mean that, overall, the CMA provisionally concludes that the proposed transaction is not in the public interest."

Matthew Moore in The Times [£]: "Trust in social media has fallen to a record low as Britons lose faith in companies such as Facebook and Twitter, according to research. Fewer than a quarter of people trust the technology and publishing giants. Most Britons believe that such companies are doing too little to address extremism, tackle cyberbullying or prevent illegal use of their platforms, the world’s largest study of trust has found. Sixty-four per cent want social media companies to face tighter regulation. There are continuing calls for them to be accountable for inappropriate content. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer also found: Trust in traditional media such as newspapers and television has jumped 13 percentage points in a year to 61 per cent, a six-year high, as consumers look for reliable news coverage."

The Observer in a leader on its new tabloid format and values: "Today, we are proud and excited to launch our new design for the Observer. We think it’s vital for a newspaper to shed its skin from time to time, to reimagine itself for loyal readers and to welcome a new generation to our journalism...In this country, a polarised politics has led to unprecedented official attacks on expert opinion and established fact. In America, President Trump’s “Fake News Awards” may have been a laughable distraction from the Mueller investigation but they were, too, a further signal that repressive forces are ascendant. In such a climate – and with an internet growth industry in deliberate untruth and unsourced conspiracy – reliable voices can be hard to find. The Observer can point to a tradition of putting itself not only at the heart, but also on the liberal, human, side of the issues of the moment."

Channel 4 News editor: Ben de Pear @bendepear on Twitter: "@Channel4News onscreen journalists expect to be held to account for their journalism but the level of vicious misogynistic abuse, nastiness, and threat to @cathynewman is an unacceptable response to a robust and engaging debate with @jordanbpeterson. Such is the scale of threat we @Channel4News are having to get security specialists in to carry out an analysis. I will not hesitate to get the police involved if necessary. What a terrible indictment of the times we live in."

The Times [£] on an analysis of Donald Trump's tweets: "The insights gleaned from the analysis show that Mr Trump, 71, did not start using the phrase “fake news” until December 2016, after the presidential campaign was over. He went on to use it 179 times last year. By doing so, he turned, in less than a year, an expression coined by the mainstream media to criticise his outlandish statements into one that conveyed his disdain for those same critics."

Sue Harris, NUJ national broadcasting organiser in a statement, after the union claimed half of the experienced producers on Panorama are to be made redundant: "The BBC's reputation and its remit as a public service broadcaster depend on flagship current affairs programmes such as Panorama and it is deeply worrying that staff say the latest cuts will all but kill off the programme and put their health and safety at risk."

Patrick Smith @psmith on Twitter: "Briefing Media, the company that owned TheMediaBriefing, which I edited during 2010-2013 (!), has rebranded itself to AgriBriefing - proving that the future of media is in fact tractors."

Press Gazettereports: "The Times has a larger daily print circulation than the Telegraph (when bulk sales are included) for the first time, new monthly figures show. The Times sold 446,204 copies in December last year, up on 393,310 at rival the Telegraph, according to ABC’s monthly newsbrands report."

Rupert Murdoch in a News Corp statement: "Facebook and Google have popularized scurrilous news sources through algorithms that are profitable for these platforms but inherently unreliable. Recognition of a problem is one step on the pathway to cure, but the remedial measures that both companies have so far proposed are inadequate, commercially, socially and journalistically... If Facebook wants to recognize ‘trusted’ publishers then it should pay those publishers a carriage fee similar to the model adopted by cable companies. The publishers are obviously enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content but are not being adequately rewarded for those services. Carriage payments would have a minor impact on Facebook’s profits but a major impact on the prospects for publishers and journalists.”

About Me

I am a freelance journalist based in the UK and was deputy editor of Press Gazette, the journalists' magazine, from 1993 until 2006. I want to give an independent view on media matters.
You can contact me with stories, ideas and comments by email at jon.slattery369@btinternet.com You can also follow me on Twitter @jonslattery